


Jellyfish

by Moonpeach



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, I swear on it, Lance regresses away from the Team, M/M, Post-Defeat of Zarkon, They come home and the world is new, a little Hunk/Keith and Lance there but it's a smidger, mentions of Shiro, mentions of others - Freeform, they're all a mess but they're coping with it together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-18
Updated: 2016-09-18
Packaged: 2018-08-15 09:39:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8051398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonpeach/pseuds/Moonpeach
Summary: Lance is a mess, all barely restrained pain of several different volumes and flavors, trying to act like this is not the worst thing he’s ever done to this team. Trying not to be so obvious in his guilt, like that ever did any good for anybody, much less for himself who loves to conceal it all in with a quiet smile pulling bandages over the cracks.He’s a ball of recklessness, a trainwreck to some certain extent. But Hunk has never thought of him like that.





	Jellyfish

When they finally come home, the first year is exhausting.

Hitting that warm atmosphere felt like pressure in his lungs when Hunk would look out through the space ship they’ve saved for this moment, just this special piece they’ve all salvaged for the months after the long war across galaxies. 

It’s weird, like a swarm of locusts huddling around the edges and corners, but even he’s aware of the happiness piling through the wreckage of hopelessness that finds its place anew short of the passing clouds and stars they’ve fled over reaching Earth. 

He is glad to be here, as is everyone else. 

He is glad to be home, and it shows in a little smile pointing the curve of his lips upward, it shows in the way he addresses his impatience with fingers tapping over the softness of his legs. The way he hasn’t stop moving even when they flew, the way he hasn’t stop looking out the windows even when they’ve landed. 

It’s a good sorta feeling, so good, and he won’t let it fetter away from him in a moment. Not since that lasting war over the Cosmos. 

He and the crew try not to think about it, the late visions of a scornful battle are laid to waste in a head of mush and overactive emotions. The kind he tries to drive out of him for fear of getting angry over himself. 

They have to remind each other, it’s nobody's fault. They did what they had to. Nobody should take heed of the blame for anything. Not since they’ve lived to tell the stories, not since the last charge, they are all warriors for it. A beacon of lasting hope for the universe’s ever wounded return to safety and balance. 

 

And the universe had thanked them, the glow of a thousand planets renewed and restored to harmony like flickering strings of fairy lights across the minds of five young soldiers. All so battle worn and torn apart with one last breath they took the chance, they handled it, they've won and they've lost, and a change was made because of it. 

Four minds left over, no longer five. 

Black is gone, and so is Shiro.

 

The time is hard for all of them, because just as they were too willing to deal with the threat of destruction and war forever, they knew at any given point in time, it wasn’t going to last. War can stain all, even the bantam barriers of innocence in children, and the effects of it is costly in a way that the scars bear worthy remembrance in all that seek it out or bear witness to its ruination. 

But the path of it isn't forever, eventually a player will fall, or an army is swept off the board in torrents of waves. 

Kingdoms are left to rot, as with the leaders that follow suit after, in surrender or death. The victors are always left to carry that weight of it later, weight amongst heavy shoulders that carry on onto the next and there after until it’s their time to follow the same faith their enemies left in. 

That’s always hard to come back from, none of them ever forgot it, it’s going to take years at a time to recover from it. 

Earth is different than what he last imagined, it’s not as the same as it was before he was running through desert landscapes behind others trying to catch up behind a lost man returned home in a space craft. 

It’s changed, things have become more modernized, more technological, the advancement couldn’t have taken them a mere good twenty years if Hunk could speculate the length of time invested. And it sorta scares him how much time had passed by in the moments they were playing saviors up across the stars; endless black, and aeons of civilizations in dire need. 

 

It’s scary to think about the people they’ve left behind and how many of them have aged and beyond. 

But they try to wind back into it, however much harder it is to sustain back into normalcy; things aren’t as easy trying to remain the same, rolling into the same old routine as they did years ago before they were made for something bigger and better than themselves. 

Before a war, before a time where the concept of Space and its pitch black endlessness didn't scare Hunk so much.

He resents having to let the others go in their separate ways, they torn themselves away from each other the moment they touched down, Lance being the first to go.

Pidge went home to a mother of old age and frigid desolation, the hard lines in her face dig into her skin like nails when the crinkles of life in her eyes spark fair and fast with tears at the sight of her two children and husband home. 

It was heartfelt and bitter, Hunk remembered hearing from Pidge how her mother wept for weeks after they had returned, so lost in the loneliness of twenty years gone by on baited breath. 

It was hard for her to even comprehend the words of her family’s trials, their traumas and nightmares that followed them in weaker steps in the night; where her father stroked with a tremor in his body, and her brother screamed in hell over several different accounts. 

Pidge regresses backwards to who she once was before higher calling, but she never reclaimed her older habits. 

 

It was harder for Keith, because the boy didn't exactly have much to come back home to. He didn’t have much of anything coming home from the work of tired heroism and wanderings of deeper space.

It wasn’t the same for him, and he regretted to open up on it being the only known fact that Shiro was the last piece of family he had left upon this plain of no direction and no path for anything outside of just what he had with the Garrison before they chose to kick him to the curb. 

All he has is that little shack Hunk remembers somewhere off the horizon of a deserted landscape. Tight place, heavily crowded with papers left askew; a board of pictures, news clippings and red strings. 

He remembers reading all of that and it all leading them to a treasure hidden under the rough surrounded in markings. The Blue Lion was the first call for something they didn’t understand but took flight to immediately. He remembers the course of a smile and a glint in their eyes, Keith was content up there. Probably more better suited for the endurance of space and it’s obstacles than anyone else was prepared for. 

It’s not like he isn’t completely unhappy to be here, because it’s not as lonely anymore, he’s gotten a new family here with Hunk and the rest, so the trouble with that doesn’t lie with him being by himself without contact, but more on the lack of having nothing worthwhile to come back to. 

That all had been taken away from him years ago, ever since he was little. It’s just not the same, and here is a place of just imbedded secrecy, a place for safety until he was sure that Shiro would come back a year or so later before their lives weren't already a basket case of universal dependence and waterdown martyrism by the hands of five strong minds and five wielded lions 

Keith will tell Hunk, he doesn’t wanna stay here, he’d rather be anywhere in the stars right about now, doing what it is he can do to prevent the instability, find a source of purpose again, because if it couldn’t fare well for him here just aeons ago, what difference would it have fared now so far into a future they’ve only just gotten back a day from to know. 

Hunk isn’t surprised by any of it. 

Even with the prospect of being home, alive and safe and talking in hushed murmurs to himself again and again- _I’m alive this is real, I’m alive this is real_ , the thought of falling back into what was made apparent by them, the older shells, isn’t so much easier said than done anymore. 

He wants the help the world, wants to make a difference in something all over again like he did just above the clouds that rain over his little home down the narrow streets he’s walked. 

Wants to make change the way he did once on a planet decorated in crystals and civilizations met with fear to expressions of hopeful ire, a fire he’s seen in the eyes of both his mothers setting sight to him in the doorway, their arms sprayed out to him in love the very same way he remembers the day when he left home.

It’s good to be here again, no matter how much has changed, they’ve amped up everything in the house they could have offered for distractions from their missing son turned savior of the universe. Everything but his room which laid in stasis and the backyard sitting in the cold of autumn's grasp. The old swings he remembers swinging on, the pond and it’s murky waters…

Hunk gets out of the house to make change happened, because it’s become abundantly clear to him as it did with the others that the habits they’ve swept upon in the skies above aren’t just going to magically go away. The urge to help, to fix things, he’s good at that, that’ll never change; and he’s out there and he’s doing it to the best of his abilities the way he did back on Balmera, on Scrotos.

Sometimes Keith would come along for the ride because he misses that companionship. He misses that contact, they try to emulate into daily routines of going out and helping people, whether in charity work, or just through work he’s acquired from old shops. 

It’s not exactly the same, but it helps, even if the impact is only just on the verge of subtle. 

And it’s not like he’s alone, he’s got Keith to talk to, he’s got Pidge whenever she’s available. 

They have meetings on the late near the end of every week just to do weekly check ins with each other. It’s nice Hunk thinks, because even though they don’t have to do any of this, they do it just to keep that long lasting connection they’ve all shared. And it feels better that way somehow, he feels better about it. 

Even if one of them is missing from the aftermath.

\------------------------------------------

Lance doesn’t call anyone. 

This goes on for about a month before anybody actually says anything. And Hunk can’t understand why they waited so long to say anything at all, considering it is Lance, and Lance is a friend of all of them, and someone should have said something sometime between a couple of periods in of regurgitating traumas and the stories to announce that - _”Hey boy in blue has fallen off the maps.”_

 

It’s said first by Keith who came around to admitting that the silence they’ve all shared on their way back from space was made abysmal due to the absence of Lance taking off and running without a moment’s notice. Without so much as a goodbye. Keith had made him promise to keep in contact with them if he had chosen to leave so early. 

Hunk remembers that, because he was there for it all when they landed. A moment of catching up to Lance rushing, grabbing him by the hand, they had to halt his actions like he was about to take off into danger the same ways he took off on the battlefield, soaring over purple skies on Algea many moons ago.

He was there to witness the glassy eyes pierce through concerned ones as they conversed, a hidden message between the lines and he remembers biting his lips when Lance had nodded, because it didn’t seem all that genuine and truthful where the promise had laid. 

Hunk gets Lance, he really does, better than anyone else within the crew; Keith knows this as well. That’s probably why his eyes had flickered Hunk’s way the moment Lance withdrew from them to leave, helmet held careworn in his hands, staring after Lance in thought. 

he is the first one to feel angry about the whole ordeal coming up short, and no one would blame him for it because somehow Hunk saw it coming, but didn’t act accordingly to it at the time, as he was sure Lance would at the very least stay in contact with all. 

Lance isn’t really one to break promises, but then again that was the old Lance. 

He has no idea what kinda bungled version of Lance it was that stepped off that craft a month ago. 

All Hunk knows for sure is that, they haven’t heard from Lance in a month, they don’t have a clue of where it is he went, or what it was he was trying to get away from. In addition to this, the relationship between all including Lance has become very strained to the point where his name ever so sparingly comes up in conversations at all. They don’t even try to hide the ire. 

Hunk plays as mediator once again for a crew feeling like their time here is abandoning all of what they all used to share under the same sky during a time of crisis and despair. He plays it well efficiently enough even if the effort feels wasted over time. 

Keith resents Lance’s departure, Pidge agrees it doesn’t seem fair, and it’ll be a week or so of this before Hunk starts to wish he hadn’t let Lance leave them all in the dark.

 

He won’t answer any outgoing calls to his cell, Hunk feels a lump of coal fill up the space in his throat. 

This shouldn’t hurt so much. 

 

\-------------------------------------------  
Week two goes by and Keith is livid.

He hates Lance, and he hates himself for not realizing ahead of time that the promise made on a dreary day of white and orange was gonna lead to this bullshit. He should have known better than to entrust Lance with this. 

Hunk will tell him, it’s nobody’s fault, they never even asked where he was going, but the statement is sounding a lot more like an excuse for Lance’s mistake than an honest answer.

Pidge points it out, that if Lance really truly wanted to stay in contact, he would have done it already. they’d be hearing from him more often than a scarce few phone calls that lead to nothing but voice mails and automated messages. 

It doesn’t make any sense for him go this long without saying anything. It just doesn’t.

And Hunk will want to argue, want to say something in defense, he’ll want to give Lance the benefit of the doubt, because he’s sure the guy is only coping for himself and maybe solitary confinement was the best way he did it. He didn’t know, and he’s supposed to be the best friend, the one who knows better about Lance than most. The skill of that had not yet been reopened since they’ve gotten back, Hunk is trying, trust him on that. 

But they don’t seemed phased, it’s an awful atmosphere. 

It doesn’t make it any better that Lance isn’t even answering him. of all people, Hunk would think Lance would have it in him to strike up a conversation-or an apology to him for going by unnoticed as if they’re supposed to forget that he still exists somewhere. 

He doesn’t know why the thought that not even his cell is blowing up with texts from a certain lanky boy in blue makes him nauseous. Doesn’t really want to understand it either, the feelings are complicated. 

But it hurts to know that he’s not hearing anything, not getting anything out of them for a month that’s starting to feel like a year. 

Things are tiresome and he can’t keep telling Keith to stop ranting over the phone about how they should’ve just told Lance to fuck off, since it was made clear from the very start he was gonna drop what they had for something better. 

That Lance had wished once upon a time to be back here on the Earth, near grassy plains and blue skies, and bluer oceans. The beach between his toes and a slosh of ocean breeze to bring the nostalgia of home at his fingertips. 

Lance could ramble about it for years, and he did for a time, however much the homesickness bleed well between the crooked smiles of his teeth when he thought nobody paid attention. Hunk revels in those moments, because he’s been there himself, and he and Lance would sit out on the docks of the castle looking at simulations and old memories together, leaning into one another until one started to shed tears or fall asleep in the other’s lap.

Things were nice then, things were simple; Hunk misses it and he knows the others do too, even under all the resentment he knows Keith is the same way he is upon the topic of Lance himself: they miss him, and they wanna reach out, and ask questions. they wanna know what the problem is and why a phone call is so hard to come by these days. 

They wanna add comfort to a boy who’s probably grieving a loss, they wanna be there for a boy who’s probably regretting all this isolation. 

They just don’t know where to really start, but Hunk has ideas. 

\--------------------------------

On a Monday, after work with help around a shelter, he tells Keith in short detail that he’s going out of town for a few days. 

The wide peculiar raise of their brows allows Hunk to relax and settle with gently informing them that it’s not something too big or family oriented, it’s just for personal reasons.

And they don’t seem all that convinced by it, squinting under the black of his bangs in suspicion. “ What for?” 

Hunk doesn’t like having to lie for any reason, especially not to Keith. It is not his greatest asset and he’d be damned with trying to act like he could run rings around them while going back to the one place he knows Lance could be. 

So he says, “ I’m going to visit an old friend of family”, and then he shuts him up again, a flat line made light to the curve of his lip in distain, like the word of a lie is both sour and bitter in his mouth. 

It seems to sate Keith some, but the suspicion never leaves his eyes, they trail over Hunk carefully. Scrutinizing them with a leer that could put Hunk under heat waves of anxiety if he wasn’t trying to compose himself like this under stress. 

The lie isn’t even as untruthful as it sounds, a friend of family is definitely a label for Lance, anyone could easily have figured that out, but they have others, and they’re good work ins if the excuse needed anymore proof. 

Keith never asks beyond the first question, seemingly understanding it some whist nodding his head several times. “ I gotcha..”

It’s almost surreal to watch, Hunk almost feels bad for it, but the offer had shown itself delicately enough for him to try it, however much he wished he didn’t. He’s gonna get Lance to talk to them one way or another, more importantly pull him out of whatever rut he’s managed to slide himself into if there is a bridge to burn there when he’s found them, but he wants the others to sit out of it. 

He can deal with this in his own way, while they worry about their own things. Keith maybe not so much the trouble since it’s clear the indignation hasn’t settled back, and Hunk doesn't really want the conflict. This will be fine for now.

If he's not doing this for Lance, he’s doing this for the team. Because they at least need that peace of mind in all each other again to weathered whatever else the rest of their lives have to offer. 

And if not for Lance, he’s doing this for himself, because the age has been too long a passing month for him not to worry about the whereabouts and well being of his friend’s state.

He’s gonna fix this, He will. 

Because if Lance will drop anything at all for a talk to anybody, it’s gonna be Hunk. 

He already knows this, and that’s why he’s going.

 

\---------------------------------------------------

He knows exactly where to look for first, a bus trip saves him for less than skirting across town on foot. He hadn’t wanted to take a car with him, considering that he had none of his own and asking that of his mothers seemed like too much already since coming home.

So he’s taking the bus, extra money on hand in pockets. A light jacket to combat the Fall while he sits and looms out the windows across barren plains of grass lands and rural areas. 

The neighborhood is just about the same as it was years ago, houses tightly knitted together in rows around corners and streets. 

He can spy the trinkets of old memoir fade ways into the background around him when he ends up walking that narrow corner. Ends up in a place he’s hasn’t been in since he was seven, the cracks in the sidewalks that he used to remember have all been patched up. the streets a little cleaner, and more people rounding out of their homes, work on their minds, no time for a hello. 

He remembers being on this street, living in a house not too far off from the coast of a beach. It was nice then, breezy and ever so warm during the summer and spring. He remembers, riding his bike down that elongated slope of a path on very steep hill sides, the air tossing hair out of his face in laughter, puncturing the inner airways of his ears as he went.

Remembers an old house that used to be owned by a man in his fifties, he’d get his mail at the same time Hunk will see him at quarter hour past three, they always used to wave at him when he rolled by, white picket fences and the smell of coffee boasted familiar. 

remembers that old man moving out one day, the home left behind in stasis for two months, a sign left behind in ruined grass, and then nothing else.

He’s walking past that same place, his old home, His mothers had moved out several years back after his departure, they never got around to telling him why, or for whatever reason it was that things just pedaled them further and further away from this place in due time. 

but seeing that old home turned new in the face of strangers feels unreal to him in some way. Like he should be here and this should be where he fled to first of all places when he reached ground. Not somewhere off the borders of Arizona. But….here really. 

 

Here back in this small little neighborhood .

The house he’s here for, the one he remembers as a kid, is still there, still full of life just like he knew it would. There’s not a lot of cars sticking along the sidewalk or near the driveway, which lets him know there’s not much company awaiting him if he ever brings himself to come in. 

But he has a feeling Lance is waiting somewhere in there, and he has a feeling that this is where he took off to, because if anything else, family is the one thing Lance could never let go of, it was the one thing he settled for as a goal up in the stars for himself. 

That he’d come home a better man than he was before-- A Hero at least, strong willed and ready to jump back into the arms of the people who’ve waited on baited breath for their son’s return. Hunk can already picture the visualized reunion in his head-- Happy light hearted, tearful and very bittersweet. It makes his stomach do jumps, he wished he could have gone with Lance. 

And he’s taking long lento strides to the door, hesitation at it’s peak when he knocks and expects nothing. Maybe no one is home, maybe they’re somewhere else, and this isn’t the right address anymore. They could have moved. 

His family did, however much he never knew until late, it didn’t distill anything between them, they were still just as happy to have him home nonetheless. And he’s ringing that doorbell ever so nervous about this as he was before, when someone does come to answer it, and it’s a face that he recognizes, and it's a face that he knew when he was only just seven; riding bikes down lanes and spending the nights here with Lance outside in backyard camps 

It’s Lance’s older sister, wide eyed and surprised by Hunk’s ever so sudden presence in the doorway. Her hair a fair bit lighter in color than what it used to be aeons ago, she seems thinner in weight as well. Her mouth opens several times, like she’s unsure of what to say, then lets him in, because the words haven’t opened up an introduction quite yet. 

She doesn’t need to, because Hunk already knows what’s happening before he even has the chance to utter his reasons. The sound of rampant footsteps coming down the stairs lets him know, stops in front of him, just the same way they did when Lance got rigid in the face of danger. 

Stops with bewilderment threading the needle deep in ocean blue, the way Hunk always remembered it, and he’s smiling up at a familiar face again, like the bitter trials of getting here and finding this out the only way he thought up was good enough for a reunion of this. 

He says in quiet murmurs, “Hi Lance..” 

And then shuts off.

\--------------------------------------------  
The house looks like it hasn’t changed in twenty years. 

That’s Hunk’s first thought, when wandering, he’s greeted by the faces of many, the faces of older men and women who have been working, busy in the years that have gone by during their ventures away. It makes him think about all the times he’s run around this place at ages that swept through the years of eight to nine, to ten years old through his most common preteen adventures outside in the pool they have now covered up by a grey tarp. 

Everything here is old and tattered with holes. Some he’s found in furniture that’s been decades too frail of age to be here any longer. The couch he and Lance used to jump on at night when they first had sleepovers, when they used to roast marshmallows out on the patio, when they had that birthday party outside on the pool that one hot summer day; every piece of family there to celebrate something. 

He and Lance were thirteen back then and in real time he can see it happening all over again, wandering in each room, replaying old memories in his head like a cycle of holograms playing on repeat. 

He’d say it was memorably nice it wasn’t for the fact that he was here for something different. 

If he wasn’t so bitter about a friend gone dark.

And then he reaches Lance's room, which hasn’t looked like it had been touch in a millennia, everything in it from stacks of books,to old clothes and what not are collected tidy in their places over the walls and in the closet. His floor and dressers collated with dust. This is probably the only room in this house that doesn’t look any different from the rest, the only room that hasn’t shape shifted into a living space for larger families. 

Hasn’t moved around or been replaced with something new, a little piece of time still frozen in place since the last time he saw it. 

Lance has a blank stare, fitted for the walls and tattered cobwebs over the fan and windows. He looks like he hasn’t slept since they’ve gotten back, if the moons under his eyes are anything to go by , and Hunk settled in the middle of the doorway, unsure of whether or not he’s permitted to step into the space.

He doesn’t wanna intrude on too much, he has some courtesy for privacy, but it’s been too long since he’s seen his best friend, and it’s been too long since they’ve talked. 

And he doesn’t know what it is that commanded them to run off like that without so much as an acknowledgement to the rest of them. Why they left without a sign, and he’s shaken somehow by this unseen presence running amuck about them, sitting on the bedside quiet without a word to offer. Not even a freaking Hey-Hi-Hello how are you doing, did you miss me? 

_Yeah, he sure has missed you you ass._

“ You know you can come in right?” 

Hunk blinks, seemingly swimming underwater in his own thoughts. He stammers, “ Oh--Uh.. Right of course.” 

They say nothing to him when he comes in, they say nothing when he sits down. They’re at arm’s length between each other now, the bed creaking under Hunk's weight, and he frowns. “ How have you been?”

Lance has a tired face to match the tone that’s come out a little too softly from his lips. They don’t even look like they’ve washed their face in a while either, that’s not a good sign. “ I don’t know.. How have you been?”

Hunk is parted between answering that with something short of a fired back retort or a response baited with acquit sarcasm that goes _“ Oh nothing, we’ve been doing okay, and by that I mean we’ve been struggling in our own ways without you, and you haven’t picked up a call from anyone since we've gotten back, and everyone thinks you’re an asshole because you didn't uphold to what you were promised to do. Keith hates your guts and Pidge thinks you’re selfish for it. Oh and did I mention that I’m a little angry myself for knowing you never contacted me either?”_

But instead it goes. “ Yeah we’ve been okay.” 

 

Lance pairs a glance that flickers a little too quickly for Hunk to catch. His lips chapped when he rubs a tongue gently over the bottom. How long has it been since he’s been like this?

They don't’ say much, and Hunk can’t tell when or whether or not someone is going to take it upon themselves to address the elephant in the room, the real reason he’s traveled all this way to talk to them, how he had known to come here first of all places. How he had a feeling Lance would be here, how he had known anything at all, and yet still doesn’t feel like he had known nothing from the start of it. 

It’s just a lot of silence in between glances to the walls and shelves. Lance still has all his little comics books from when he was nine, and they used to go under the sheets with a flashlight to read them at night. The titles of Thundercats and Captain America stick out like a bright light to Hunk the most, those were Lance’s favorites. 

 

“ I’m really sorry.” Lance opens up, and Hunk pulls out of his stupor again, the little bleak images of his younger self with Lance overlooking all the books with a softness in their eyes fades in the background when he turns, looks at Lance. 

It sounds genuinely banal, like he’s talking through a rock in his throat, still groggy, still a mess. 

Hunk’s brow quirks. “ Are you really?” 

And Lance will shut up again, twisting a formal apologetic look that seems real, even if Hunk can tell from here that he’s trying too hard to come off as contrite. 

Okay, maybe he is a little too exhausted, he should share a little sympathy. But a little voice in his head tells him he shouldn’t. It sounds like Keith’s, and they’re angry, spouting things like _No! Don’t sympathize, he doesn’t deserve it. Ask him of why he ran, why he hasn’t called._

And it comes out as lightly as Hunk can put it, “ What have been doing all this time?” 

 

Lance’s mouth runs like a hailstorm. He’s hurtling an excuse out like the answer was scripted, like he’s had too much time on his hands to think about it, and he’s tearing off at the seams by Hunk’s side with a quarrel of hands making fluttery gestures while he stammers and tries not to make it seem like it was that bad, like it wasn’t that big of a deal at the time. He flatters it by saying it was matter of how he handles coping, of he had to see his family before anything else. 

Because it’s been twenty something years, twenty fucking something years of missing birthdays and missing families, and doing all of this and doing all of that. Because he’s finally here, and not light years away from familial contact anymore, they did what they had to, and he’s never been happier, never been sadder, never been this tired before in his life because the life around them has changed so drastically he didn’t know what to do with himself. 

And he stammers some more, and he looks like he’s on the verge of crying, and Hunk looks like he’s on the verge of biting his lip and telling them to stop and slowing it down because Lance is going at hyperspeed over it. And it all feels weird and out of place, and that voice in Hunk’s head is stomping around, having a tantrum, banging pots and pans screaming -- _THAT’S NOT A GOOD ENOUGH EXCUSE, THAT’S NOT A GOOD ENOUGH EXCUSE!!_

But then Lance slows it down ahead of himself talking for too long, like he's a goddamn mindreader, and he’s talking less, and his mouth grits with a whine of protest at the end of it. Hunk hasn’t said a word throughout any of it. 

Doesn’t know what to say about it, it’s like his brain is pressing through the motions of absolving this in a manner that he only knows how, and fluctuates between giving them a solid answer and falling apart again with Lance. But he stops short of himself to collect, give himself some time to sort through the mess of thoughts, and focus on answering all of that as carefully as he can muster. 

“ Lance, I get it. You needed time away for yourself.” 

It’s short and sweet and he knows somewhere he should have answered that better with something more along the lines of rightful indignation somewhere held back within the recesses of his throat. But he’s not gonna do that, he’s not a person to get mad very lightly; and yelling at Lance isn’t really going to absolve anything at all if what that little voice in his head has anything to say about it. Lance looks confused, then solemn, he probably expected them to call him out. 

“ I know, and I am sorry for not calling anyone I’ve… I’ve been having a really stressful week-- I mean month really. It’s been a month, and I know I should have at the very least have stay in contact with you guys even after we came home. It feels weird to have to go without that..”

That last statement is funny, there’s a sense of irony in it. “ So why didn’t you?” 

Lance swallows. “ Because everybody is--- was going through the same stuff, they’ve all had to deal with this, a bit of grievances for family members, I missed out on a lot of things, and I didn’t want to just back out and leave for a little. Really I was thinking about coming back to see you guys again, talk..like I wanted to. But they needed some support, and they’ve haven’t seen me in like forever so, I thought it would be alright to just stay here for a little bit with them, you know, let them have me around for a moment.” 

 

Hunk doesn’t know what to say about that, it’s a nice set of words but it doesn’t explain the lack of contact. Why he didn’t just give in to call with them later about certain things, he didn’t have to cope with this by himself. 

“Why didn’t you let anybody know ? Everybody was wondering where you ran off to, they’ve been talking about you for weeks, we thought you had suddenly dropped off the maps.”

 

At the mention of “they” Lance’s expression shrivels up. He knows exactly the ones Hunk is talking about. “ I know..”

“ Do you know how long it’s been since we’ve last heard from you?”

“ I know.”

“ It’s been a month..”

“I know..”

“ Almost a month and a half.”

“ I know..”

 

Hunk presses, “ do you have any idea of how long that’s been? How many weeks we’ve had to sit by and wait for you to answer anytime we felt like getting in contact with you and you never did? And then I find out the reason for why you never did and that reason turns out to be not good enough?” 

Lance sounds pained, frustration ebbs. “ I know! Okay? I know, I fucking know all about it, and I’m trying to make it seem like it wasn’t a big deal at the time. You’re right it was awful of me to just take off and split, and I’m sorry for it, but...I don’t know. I don’t know why I didn’t, I guess my mind was just preoccupied with other things at the time that the moment just didn’t struck me that you haven’t heard or seen me in a month.” 

And it starts off in Hunk's head like a _“Gotcha!_ And it starts like a grind of _“ I told you so”_ somewhere chanting loudly in the back of his head. It starts like a edge of a knife cutting a wound in his stomach. 

 

And it ends with “ Were you ever going to call?” To which Lance stares onward like he didn’t hear the question at all. 

“ Did you really want to hear me like this?” 

Hunk sits back on his elbows, the bed creaking in protest when the softened expression of his face leers stony and full of consternation. “ You promised Keith..”

Lance shuts up immediately after that.

\----------------------------------------------------

It’ll be three days in a week before Hunk becomes a constant figure in Lance’s bedroom. 

Lance will go out of his way to seek others, seek family, when the day called for it, Hunk would even come out to help himself. Just cause he could. And they all appreciated it, it was nice seeing a familiar face come home after god knows what, and after so many years. 

 

They tell Hunk, about the house next door, how the new neighbors aren’t as friendly as he was when his family lived in it. How they’ve missed that young little boy who Lance would talk about for days on end, who Lance would call first for playtimes and sleepovers and nights out under the moon and stars. 

Lance’s mother will tell him, how glad she is to see Lance talking again, because apparently he doesn’t do that much anymore. He’ll learn that Lance will lock himself in his room for a time, sometimes coming out for the support of others, sometimes helping things around the house.

Sometimes talking to Alex and talking to Julia, but never much about how he’s been or about much of what he’s been doing. 

It worried her at first because of how distant he’d seemed and Hunk feels a little guilty, settling with telling her he’s just coping with things and needs a little time to open himself up from the wounds. It’s a blatant lie in itself, because Lance should have gotten what he wanted from all of this, he should be a little more than happy to be back here, considering he went through all the trouble of not telling anyone where it was he was going. Practically jumping through hoops and hoops of excuses and still hasn’t called anybody yet since Hunk showed up on his doorstep two days ago. 

And this would the third day he will have to hear all of this from family members. 

Not from Lance, who should have been the one to tell him this. 

He has tried on several accounts to get Lance to talk with the others, get of ahold of stability and make something happen but so far he has had no luck. 

He doesn’t know how to handle it.

At some point, while Alex is talking over Julia in the living room, Hunk remembers them best, the cousin and the older sister whom he had come to meet early in life, Alex at a birthday, and Julia almost all the time he came over; a little care in her eyes, a little sadness somewhere flaring in her chest. Hunk thinks, as she’s bringing him stuff to the bedroom across the hall, the one she used to reside in before moving out. Purple walls and still put up posters of bands and idols. He thinks that maybe he should have brought someone along. 

That maybe he should've though to include another console in the mix of this considering the effort that he went through to get here all by himself. At the first it seemed right to, go off by himself and deal with this so that nobody else would have to conflict with Lance the way he could- and has been doing for the longest time ever. 

He thinks that, at some point, this plan wasn’t as great an idea as he suspected it would be, that getting Lance to talk wasn’t gonna be easy, and with all these people here to add obstacle to his previous thought process, he thinks -- Well maybe this wasn’t right. Maybe Lance is just not ready to come out of that box just yet, maybe he needs time, and maybe Hunk was wrong for coming here. 

Maybe he should’ve took Keith with him, maybe they could’ve talk some sense into Lance, so that this nonsensical tug-a-war between keeping silence for months on end without contact and hesitation to could cease. Maybe trying to do all of this by himself was more work than he had previously assumed, maybe he should have just left this alone. 

But he didn’t want to leave this alone, he missed Lance he will not deny this; and he misses listening to that voice like they used to late at night when they used to call each other in early teenage years when one couldn’t sleep and it was deep conversations of space, and it was deep conversations of what they wanted to do in life and what they always wanted to be, and how they’d get there, and how they’d never leave each other behind for anything. 

_Promise me we’ll stick together through this forever? Of course! I’m never leaving you behind._

 

Hunk revels in those odd moments of patience, of time, because he’s got more than enough of that on his hands, and he thinks about it, and he rolls over onto one side of his bed, sheets left halfway covering his legs and stomach; and he hates it. because that promise they made years ago was too long a ways from what they are now, and they’re not the same people they were before of a war and makeshift destinies. He wants to laugh at it, if there was a way to rewind time, he might’ve told his younger self not to wait up, that promise isn’t gonna hold forever. 

When the night comes, Lance enters Hunk’s room, quiet and still. He hadn’t bother to change out of his clothes from before all a tshirt and small shorts. It’s a hestiant beat, a hestiant hand that pulls the space of Hunk from his slumber for a warmth, one Lance is in need of, he keeps a good eye, makes Hunk look at him. 

Hunk is earth; warm soil in loving arms to an withering ocean in front of him, Lance is too close and too full of noises for them to be up this late at night, especially with other people in the house.

It’s quiet moments of coddling a face in tears, it’s them recesses back to memories they’ve left behind on book selves, and dusty patios and bike rides. Summer nights under camp tents and blurry lights in pools. Hunk is content, for a moment he’s carrying that weight all by himself here with Lance in his arms, suffering the worst sobs he’s ever heard come out of him since the fall of Zarkon, since the they day they rolled themselves out of the rumble and into the skies, as clear as day he remembers it. 

Lance was screaming, and crying and laughing all at once, and Keith was there, and Pidge was there, and he was there to witness-- to access the damage control while everybody else coughed and battled ruins of smoke and ash in their chests. 

It was a bittersweet moment, too bitter, and Hunk remembers someone grabbing Lance by the neck, tugging him into open arms the likes of which he hasn’t seen before since the accident with the car many years ago, and it’s imitated visually through the sign of Keith throwing his arms around the boy in blue, around a waist and collar, hugging each other so tightly it almost looked like Lance couldn’t breath in the embrace. 

But he looked so happy, and he never stopped laughing, and he never let go until they went home, energized, than crashing. He remembers them tearing away in shambles of each other, of long awaited screams and throat wrenching sobs, of the way the world just came down over them in reminder of their loss, and none of them could shake it off, Shiro had bled with them. 

They went home feeling worse about it than relieved that thousands upon thousands of civilizations were happy at their expense, They should have been proud. 

Shiro would have been proud, Hunk tells himself this over and over, Shiro would have been proud. And he tells this to all of them when they get back from the ship, when they make up a funeral, when they sit around in their rooms gathering things for the long trip home, feeling awful and more than upset. 

 

Lance squirms underneath, like the warmth around him is suffocating, uncomfortable. Breathing is labored gradually pulling out his lungs when Hunk pressed a gentle hand through his hair, soothing. Like what he used to do back before they made ways for the Garrison on a clearer night. 

They lay like that for a few moments, without words; the atmosphere around them feel less bleak.  
It’s this, and Hunk can do whatever he feels is needed to handle the stress of each other here again, like a spark of confidence. 

It’s what Lance needs-- the comfort 

It’s what they need. 

He can carry this weight just fine.

\----------------------------------------------------------

“ I”m sorry for all of this.” Lance will insist. 

Hunk sits out on the patio with him, a phone in hand, while his eyes searches the yard and its growth. In the absence of them, the yard shape shifted into a garden of flowers, vegetation hanging over the arches of fences and a small pocked area of seeds and potted plants. There’s a new orange tree growing steadily away by the berth of the pool, it looks like it’ll make for great shade come the summer time, if they ever chose to visit here again. 

He thinks it would be good for them all, a vacation, just the four of them all together. Something to burn off the stress, the unneeded anxiety. They could take a trip in one of the old cars one of his Moms had saved for him for whenever he’d get home, make use of that license that’s been sitting on his dresser. 

Hunk half hears him, and half frowns in response, he’s been hearing that same sentence for a good long week. 

“ Okay..” 

“ No it’s not okay..” Lance will turn, the glow of the setting sun lighting up the half of his face, it makes a ring of shadows in the eyes, as wide as they are bright. Hunk shivers. “ Nothing about this is okay. I didn’t tell anybody where was I going, I didn’t call anybody like I was supposed to, I fucked up majorly..” 

Hunk thinks they’re putting too much of the blame on themselves, that they should tone that down, but he doesn’t, he lets it go on, he lets them keep going. 

“ I wasn’t.. I wasn't thinking about anybody else, I was just concerned about myself. I wanted to get away from things, get away from the grieving for a little bit. It wasn’t so much that I wasn’t grieving myself, it was just that I wanted to do it on my own time, in my own way, away from everything else.... is that wrong?” 

Hunk hums thoughtfully, fingertips tapping over the screen of a phone, It vibrates gently in his hands. A message from Pidge. Lance sees it first, swallows, and then looks away, as if thinking. 

“ And I know it sounds a little selfish…” 

“ More than that..” Hunk says, quieter, his eyes pull from the trees to the phone screen. She’s asking of how he’s been. 

“ Okay you’re right, yeah it was selfish, totally selfish, full blown one-hundred percent selfish, you’re right. You’re right. I shouldn’t deface that.” 

Hunk snorts, passing over the message, he wants to ask how Keith is doing, almost taps the message out fully lettered but backtracks and erases. He could always ask that himself, it doesn't have to be through Pidge. “ Deface it?” 

“ You know what I mean..” Lance gives a short playful nudge to them, a barely a shoulder touch, Hunk feels it and almost initiates nudging them back but halts. 

It’s nice what they have here. What they’re doing, and saying doesn’t really hold much of the relevance in it. But Hunk is withholding so much effort in throwing out the talk of how many years they’ve spent here in this very neighborhood, how many years they’ve spent with each other like this, under sunsets and pink and white skies, and it pulls a string of reminisce out of him, threading through him contumaciously like wisps of air caught somewhere in his lungs. It feels like home. 

And maybe he starts to get why Lance was so adamant to come back here so soon. This place is magnetizing.

 

“ But even still, I probably should have said something.” Lance continues, his hand busies with a rock on the pavement “ I shouldn’t have left you all in the dark like that. That wasn’t right, and even though I tried to push myself to get back to you,I just.. had a hard time working my ways up to it you know? Which in a sense doesn’t really seem all that big of an excuse-- though not that I'm trying to say that it was because it’s not but.. Everything happening around me was just super overwhelming, and I wanted to wait and give you all some time to spend with your families before I came back, It seemed like a good idea at the time when I first thought about it..” 

Hunk stiffens, that last part isn’t exactly truthful, only three of them have those things to look forward to here. Lance forgets about Keith. Looking at them with a small expression of peeve. 

“ You forget--”

Lance catches on before Hunk really gets the words out, he clamps a hand over his mouth, flinching. “ Shit-- oops… nevermind.” 

_Yeah oops._

They stay quiet for minutes after that. The sun’s already fading over the heels of the fence, the first stars starting to make appearances in a cloudless sky. Hunk thinks about all the planets, thinks about the people out there who are happy with freedom and moving on with their lives the way they’ve only dream about before. He wonders about Shay, how she’s holding up back on Balmera, it must be nice to have all your problems sorted out of the way after just one long battle.

Lance is getting up, away from Hunk's side to mess with a piece of the tarp by the pool, the water tipping in boundless vibrations at his fingertips. Hunk puts away his phone, the message he’s typed not quite finished, not quite ready to be sent, he wants to give them a good status report of his time out here. 

“ The water’s too cold for us to jump in.” Lance inputs when Hunk is close enough, he’s taking off his shoes and socks, dipping his legs gently into the water, it starts with a shiver and a gasp under his breath to cut it short. Hunk is a little weary about doing the same. 

“ You wanna join?” 

They give him a short look, swishing his feet around in the water for a couple of times till Hunk is seconds away from sitting down with him by the edge. Tentative fingers pulling at the knots of lace in his shoes. 

“ I don’t know, the water doesn’t look all that clean. " He hears Lance snort at that, the noise close to a pitch higher than Hunk’s, laughter at the baseline and he’s waving a hand. “ No really it’s fine, it’s not that bad… a little cold but it’s not that bad.” 

“ We’ll see.” Hunk says, the last of his shoes pushed aside a little further away from the pool along with his socks. He’s dipping the first foot in, the sheer extent of what Lance thought to say was cold was only just a fraction of what he felt when taking that first step with caution. The end resulting in his muscles tightening up, biting half his bottom lip, repressing a less than silent gasp of air the moment ice rubs itself against the sole. 

Lance laughs at the reaction, nearly holding himself up lurching over the pool side with an arm to catch himself. “ Holy shit Hunk! Is it really that bad?” 

His foot pulls away fast, a splash of water hits his shirt and Lance’s knees. He grunts, firmly pouting, “ Yes, yes it was! Aw, Lance you said it wasn’t that cold! Why did you say it wasn’t that cold when it was?!!”

The noise that pulls out of Lance is rioting out at a volume so comical, Hunk can’t escape the smile that spreads slightly across his face at the sight, Lance is choking with mirth in between the sentences. 

“ I didn’t think it was was THAT cold, I just said it was kinda cold and thought you could handle it”

“ Are you kidding me? That was like sub zero! Not kinda cold!”

“ I thought you could handle it!” 

“Oh my god..” He settles down back besides them, nudging shoulders, Lance gets the last of his giggles out, leaning in response, this closeness they have comes back at them again. Like of all the times Lance has done something in the past that led them into trouble, of all of the things Hunk has done things for Lance in the past, which has lead them all to this. 

Lance will tell him , he’s used to that, there’s been a planet he’s been to that’s had glaciers and icebergs as large as most buildings. He had been there for months when they were all stranded from the warp after the rescue mission of Allura. Hunk sympathizes. They never really got around to talking about that time, it was left alone for while even, as a space of security for themselves, but Hunk let his half of it flitter out, wanted to get it out of his system, like nobody did. They were all just happy to be back. 

“ You know, you never really told me about that..” Hunk pipes up when they’ve settled with the water again, despite the reaction to it before, he gradually lets it swamp him steadily,the cold is not so bad anymore where he is distracted and Lance is leaning into the side of Hunk’s chest. 

Lance has been quiet about his part of that journey, he never really opened it up to anyone when he came back. All glassy eyed and amazingly reposed the entire talk they had in the common room. Shiro wasn’t with them then either. Keith was apprehensive and Pidge never went far into details about hers herself; they never pried too hard into it. Not until later of course. 

Lance finally leaves the space he had beside Hunk, the sweep of his feet leaving waters to up and stand on acrid gravel. Hunk watches him go, a glow of perched lights cast lines over the lumbar of Lance's back. “ I’ll tell you about that later, I promise..” 

Hunk will follow close behind, He’ll hold him to it.

\---------------------------------------------------------------

 

On a day that’s not so humid, Lance suggests a walk down to the beach. 

They haven’t done something that like that in years,and Hunk’s memory of it is vague and tittering on threads of thin webs in his head. 

He agrees, just to see the smile creep across Lance’s face, just to be out of this house. He feels like his time here is overbearing on its weight, and a little fresh air and time away from it could do both their minds just as good. 

Don’t get him wrong, he loves this place, it’s nice and the company surrounding them is endless and treasuring. He’s thankful enough to be here amongst familiar faces all over again. Amongst people as lively as Rosa and Gabriel. Swimming in a torrent of busy bodies like Alex and Julia. Of spending times with the elders of the home, whenever they had the time, Pietro and Janice. 

It’s nice, he won’t say it any differently, but there’s only so much he can do here, staying inside all these walls and within the confounds of Lance’s room, the only place they run off to after dark and in the late hours of night to early morning. There’s only so much one can do in a room under stories upon stories of memories and old links. With a boy who hasn’t picked a name to his many excuses for why it’s going on day seven and there’s not a phone between his fingers dialing people miles away who still care to wonder about where he is and how he’s doing. 

Hunk has offered him some more time, they’ll ease into it however long it’ll take, Lance said the day would be this and the day would come in easy, and his phone is clutched between his hands several minutes after they leave the house. Warmth in a hoodie and a tight exhale off his chest. 

Some time away from all of this week’s antics would be great. 

The path down the way is long and twisting, they don’t take a car, they like it better walking; like how they used to when they were ten and running down hillsides, following a breeze. Lance brings up that fact on the way there. He’s smiling about it like the moment is replaying in his head through his eyes when they reach the end of town, the coast of the ocean just several couple blocks away. Hunk can see the sunrise over pillars of clouds. 

He remembers coming down here somewhere off the valleys of fourteen and a board slippery in his hands. They had come to chase waves over a horizon, to stumble clumsily in the passing of open waters and try for hours at a complete and easy surf. He was scared for the fourth time in his life, breath laboring uneasy, and Lance with a brilliant smile caught in his teeth had dived in head first into the depths. He was willing, he was wild, he was guileless. It was like the waves and the crashing of his board coating the surrounding of his body when he fell didn’t bothered Lance in the slightest, like the ocean was a second home. Like he was home here in this wild tameless body of water. Surfing just seems to fly natural to him and in a couple of years, he was riding waves as far and wide as the neighborhood blur of buildings they’ve passed from after school on bikes. 

Hunk remembers a very specific memory, one that still scares him to death even as he dots on it. Of a time where the tide was too thick and the waters had risen over the course of night; how at the time he wasn’t really willingly in the mood for a surf. Lance had pleaded with him to come out anyway. It’s just no fun without him. He loves to watch and Lance loves a good audience, especially when it includes a person he liked, so Hunk never said no to it. 

They were fifteen, Lance couldn’t exactly go by himself. 

And he was on the edge of the beach, near the shoreline, the sun hot on their faces. He begets with looking away for too long, loose thoughts had unfurled and spat a sense of negativity somewhere in a spiel, and before he even knows it, Lance is gone. 

One minute he’s rising over a wave that’s inches too high for Hunk to even think they could handle it. Lance may be experienced some, but he’s only just a starter. There’s a lot he’s hasn’t driven to learn yet. Big waves are a challenge. Hunk knew that.

So when this one comes sweeping Lance off his feet, off his board and into the fresh curl of its grasp. Hunk waits in silence for their return. For them to bubble up to the surface like they always do, laughing and causing a scene with a wet fist held high in the air, screaming…

It doesn't happened. There’s no resurface.  
Another minute runs, and there is nothing. 

Hunk remembers the panic wailing alarms in his eyes, the way he stumbles--practically jumping and skipping over the pull of the ocean’s weight on his legs, It’s swimming for minutes, diving for seconds inward, his wavering voice in his head banging against the inside of his skull, _No-no-no and a please don’t be gone, please don’t drown…_

It’s seconds of finding nothing but a board, it’s seconds of him waddling around in deep waters. It’s how will he explain this-- how will he ever go home from this, How will he explain the accident, how how how.

It’s remembering the near hysteria in his voice when he’s screaming out Lance’s name, when he’s heading near a panic attack and then tears. It’s fear, it’s heart break, it’s remorse.

And then it’s solace, it’s hope. 

because he finds a body just a little ways near the end floating somewhere nearby. The voice in his head screaming in relief, _(there he is there he is!!!)_ and swimming towards him , clutching onto him, clutching on to Lance like he’s the only thing in this world that matters, he is the only thing that matters, right then and there and they’re heading for the board. Lance is coughing up a storm in his throat, all seawater and salt coating puffy lips. 

Hunk felt like dying then, His soul have stood resolute outside the shield of his body, cradling Lance with the fear in his head that if he were to ever let go, Lance would drift back into the murky waters, melt away with the sea. They’re pushing back to the shore, the coats of sea salt dripping off them like ice in the sun’s rays. And Hunk has never been thankful, never been this terrified, never been so relieved to have been there, stood there on the shores with his best friend turned almost into another terrible case of a surfing accident.

And it’s Lance lying down in the sand, it’s him smiling like he wasn’t just held at the jaws of death just five fucking minutes ago. It’s Hunk crying and almost losing his mind besides him because he was this close to losing somebody, he could have just watched his friend die right in front of him. It’s Lance sitting up, his back wet with sand and seaweed, reassuring them-- _“It’s okay, I’m okay..”_ and _No it’s not okay you could’ve died, I could've lost you, I should have been out there with you, I should have been there! god I’m sorry Lance, I’m sorry, I’m sorry I’m sorry....”_

Lance will smile back then and in real time again, when they reach that same place, that same spot they used to do just that on the edge of the beach. The winds picking up behind them as they walk and Lance is ten steps ahead. Kicking sand with his feet, searching the sun behind clouds. 

It’s funny to Hunk because he can remember all this so vividly, like the past was only a year behind them and they’re no longer past their late teens. They’re children again, searching the waves and building castles out of sand and seashells. Walking along the shores hand in hand while they quip about the future and how far ahead they’re gonna travel for. They’re gonna be pilots, they’re gonna be great, they’re gonna spread their magic through space and everything else. It’s just him and Lance. The dynamic duo. 

 

 _Promise me we’ll stick together through this forever?  
Of course! I’m never leaving you behind._

It’ll be them in the Garrison later, it’ll be a saying of _“You’re gonna be my engineer!_ and then moving on forward, then things will be different, drastically so to the point where they’re lost and find themselves in the mix of something none of them had settled for. 

Hunk had wanted to be an engineer, becoming a Defender of the Universe surely wasn’t apart of any job description he has wanted, had asked for, but Lance seemed ecstatic, he was ready for it, and they took flight together, without hesitation. Without fear of looking back.

Hunk thinks about all the times they’ve could've died. How Lance came closer to death more than any one of them combined. It makes him feel like when he was that age again, and that fear coming back, crawling sickly over his shoulders and down his spine. It left him a fettered waste over molten sand and fetid sea salt clogging up his nose. The thought of losing Lance at any given time makes him so uncomfortable, he shifts nervous next to them unsteady. And he imagines how Lance could've died in somebody else's place.. how different things would have panned out.

He thinks about how Lance could have given up at given point in time out there, how he could’ve cracked under, how he could've burned, could've froze up , could've missed an easy shot or fought off a monster only to left blind and hacked to pieces. A weird protective twisting feeling in Hunk’s stomach happens, he’s biting his lip, the crash of waves over his legs brings him back home. 

He could've watch Lance take a fall at any given time, but he's glad it was never fatal enough for them to add two notches down for paladins. That would have been two uneasy, terrible funerals, and Hunk doesn't think he could handle that. 

“ I've missed this.” Lance says, and he seems adamantly distant. Hunk is trying to move things forward with a nudge, all this nostalgia is not good for his emotions, he might start crying, his mind wandering in places. 

“ I know”, he says, just as fast. “ You could never stop talking about wanting to come back and visit this place. I think I’ve heard it more times through mind links than when you weren’t crashing over at my room for consolation.”

That earns Hunk a rightfully deserved but playful jab in his rib, A bubble of laughter echoes over the waves. 

“ Shut up, I wasn’t that bad… was I?” 

Hunk doesn’t say anything for a moment, he’s catching up with the rest of his thoughts, still very far behind. Still meshing around the surface and undoing memories put together. “ No, it wasn’t that bad, I wouldn’t go so far as to call it that. Just repetitive.” 

Lance gives him a look, “ You mean that?”

And Hunk is closing his eyes, letting the gust of air around them roll of his shoulders softly, “ You were just homesick Lance, it’s not like what you were going through was annoying or weird for anyone. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

 

They are quiet, seemingly processing that all together. “ Yeah I guess you’re right.” 

“ Of course I’m right, you think you were the only one dealing with missing home? We’ve all been through it, even Keith at some point has said it.”

To which Hunk knows the irony well in that sentence, Keith is the last person who would ever admit this place was once a home. There’s a click that falls off Lance’s tongue, sticking to one end of his cheeks that way he used to when he knew something was off. “ I’m sensing a bit of irony there…”

“ Are you reading my mind or something?” 

“ You thought the same?”

“ Heck yeah I did..”

Lance snorts, it’s not as mirthful as it was just a two days ago by the pool, but it’s soft and sweet, albeit corny. 

They stay there, watching the waves, letting it collect and scatter at their feet. Clouds have pilfered the skies a dusky grey color, sprouting sights of rain shadows that glaze an image of the incoming downpour closing in. To Hunk, it reminds him of jellyfish limbs from a distance, blurry. 

Lance will add in somber detail, his fingers twitching by his side,” I’m gonna have to call them soon.” 

 

Hunk is prepared for it, eyes flickering to their face, back and forth, the voice in his head breathes faintly-- _finally._ And Lance is staring at the phone in his hand like it’s a foreign object, like it’ll come alive and bop him upside the head at any given moment. The scene of that is comical, so much so that Hunk has to suppress a snicker with a closed fist. Coughing as camouflage; They look nervous. 

“ I think that it would be good for you..” He starts, undoing that last bit of funny bone out of him to continue.” To get that out of your system now before things get worse. You don’t wanna make them wait any longer.”

Lance continues to look long values of uncertainty at the black screen, biting his lip. It’s a sign of hesitation feigning dread. “ But what if…” he licks his lips, the flash of pink wetting careful over the bottom. “ What if they don’t want to talk to me?” 

Hunk had waited for that question, he had a feeling if would pop up out the blue of their doubt. Lance shouldn’t have to worry about that, they’ve waited for god knows how long on hand and foot hoping he’d pick up at any given time, and never did for six consecutive weeks. If anything at all, they’re gonna wanna hear his voice. Now more than ever before. 

He breathes with saying it short of “ Come on Lance, they’re not gonna hate you for picking up the phone now…” and Lance will argue that it’s bullshit, because yes they will, and yes somebody’s gonna yell about it, and it’s probably gonna be from the voice of Keith, since they’ve made quite apparent just a month ago over a space craft and a serious look about the eye that a promise was made for this very opportunity. He hasn’t forgotten that. 

Hunk falters back, “That was only just a month ago, we don’t how he’s feeling about it now. we don’t know if he’s changed on it. You don't know, he might answer you, but then again considering how angry he was for you bailing out, he might not.. it's all a chance of how he feels. "

“ All the more reason to stay mad at me.” Lance insists weakly, “I make him a promise and I don’t even go through with it within the first week it happens. I think he’s more or less thinking of ways to cut me out of his life for good then choosing to forgive me after a month and a fucking half of radio silence. It’s like you said when you first got here, he hates my guts for leaving..”

Hunk shuts up completely, his voice trapped, ebbed with irritation, words of “ No he doesn’t", and words of "Lance just give it a chance, they’ve waited this long for you, they’ve got the right to be angry. _( and don’t I??? )_ You’re not a bad person for all of this, a little selfish, but not a bad person.."

He is struck with agreeing with the voice of Keith in his head, with the numerous aphorisms of _see he knows_ , and _see he understands._ He wants to wave that all away, frown as he might, lowering his gaze. “ They’re gonna pick up if you do call them, eventually. Maybe not right now maybe not a day or so later, but eventually. Even if it feels like they won’t at all, and truthfully they might not at first, you just gotta give it time, give them some time to breath, console about it. They’ll answer you if you do keep at it. They’re not gonna hate you for it. Not forever. "

Lance doesn’t seem all that deterred, but the phone in his hands hasn’t shifted back to the safety of the pockets either, which is a good sign in itself for the both of them. It says that Lance is willing to take the chance, that he’ll go for it, even if the consequences isn't what he wants to deal with just yet.

They’ve had more than enough time to suffice with their problems and find support in their families, in the people they've left here, of themselves to cope with and then some. More than enough time to come around to it. More than a month now going on two, and Lance is staring weary eyed at a phone number, the blurs of a first letter “K’ is all Hunk can see before they pull it away to their ear, absently stepping away for a moment while the phone rings. 

They do this three times, nobody picks up. Hunk watches the waves scuttle backwards into the sea, watches the way Lance’s shoulders ache with respite and disappointment. “ Guess we’ll just have try tomorrow then huh?” 

Hunk hums thoughtfully, his hands pulling into pockets. “ I guess so.” 

Lance lets that phone ring twice again for Pidge, starts walking back. He’s moving with a kick in his step, taking ten paces over shifting sand and looking over his shoulder at Hunk, like it’s a signal to follow. They do and they catch up to him, lightly Hunk notes how fast Lance’s fingers are twitching against the blue of his jeans. Too jittery; full of life and no shortage of anxiety spilling out at its core. 

His own hand follows their path, intertwines them gently in tentative gesture. Lance gets it--he gets it, and they walk up and down the shoreline, shoulders nudging into each other like it’s fine, and this is fine for them, they fit together like Tetris blocks, and it’s safety and love in a place where everything here just works and fits in sync with one another as they’re reaching home. 

 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------  
When they awake that next morning, the day seems to feel empty. 

Hunk awakes to the sound of people walking around the house and voices echoing in and out the hallways. A better investigation entails him to the sound of cars outside rumbling at low engines. Everyone is turning scarce for home. 

He finds Lance, sitting up in his bedroom, puffy red eyes from a night of crying and talking to Keith. They had settled with no mercy, no real forgiveness just yet, it ended on a sour note, just as Lance predicted it would. The night had gone by sparingly fast, and he looked as if someone had gut punched him several times in the chest. That wasn’t a good sign.

Hunk ails the comfort, he presses words of deep sincerity, dripping in reassurance, it’s gonna be okay Lance, Keith isn’t gonna stay mad at you forever, give it some time…

The talk with Pidge however wasn’t so bad. She seemed sarcastic and bitter throughout most of it but lightened up by the end of it, hoping that he was doing okay, and adding at some point that she wanted to come out and see Lance at least once. Lance laid down that promise, he would let them know whenever he was ready to leave. He’s still abiding by it, even as he’s breaking down over the edge of the bedside, chewing his own self out for the lack of strength to do this sooner. 

Hunk doesn’t tell him to stop, he doesn’t tell him it’s not his right to be mad or sad about it. He doesn’t say anything, just sits with Lance, till the shaking in his body fades gradually in his arms. The noises retching less strepent.

 

Lance is a mess, all barely restrained pain of several different volumes and flavors, trying to act like this is not the worst thing he’s ever done to this team. Trying not to be so obvious in his guilt, like that ever did any good for anybody, much less for himself who loves to conceal it all in with a quiet smile pulling bandages over the cracks. 

Hunk is having flashbacks to when Lance was a little kid again, to when he used to sit at the edge of the sidewalk in thought. Arms curled at the knees and bruises knotting images of bad fights with the older kids in the school yards. How he’d act like things were okay, and how he’s still learning. He’ll keep giving himself time to push away the struggle of unwinding emotions the way that he alway does and Hunk was a worry wort nipping at his side, trying to get him to talk it out, but he never would. 

He just didn’t like dealing with his own feelings, his own insecurities. It took years just to get that all out of him, and Hunk is still surprised he was even told anything at all given that Lance hasn’t changed much since that time. 

He’s a ball of recklessness, a trainwreck to some certain extent. But Hunk has never thought of him like that. 

 

To Hunk, Lance is a fire that swishes in rhythm between harsh winds, he’s the one guy already raring to go, always ready to take action. The one that runs off into the battlefield with a spirit of confidence and wild nature into the face of death several times without falter, without a fear of it biting back and losing. The one that’s had the plans, used the plans and worked with this team so fluidly, the one who cherished every moment of his time out there saving planets and spreading laughter and shooting off into the same distance as Keith, neck and neck till they’re equals and holding respect with one another as close friends and family. 

Lance is willpower, Lance has the courage to carry everything on his shoulders and still prosper efficiently with the others. He called in the shots at the last chance of survival on a plain where the Tyrant choked them of their minutes of hopelessness before he pulled them up off the ground piece by piece. He’s a hero, he’s a gift, he’s a talent and a hurricane of so many different things all put together into one big piece. A one big perfect figure of Lance and his magnetic personality, and Hunk had gravitated towards it. 

He surrounded himself in it, blanketed it as a piece of inspiration for himself, a way of an reminder.They grew into each other, molded attributes out of themselves and stuck it to each other’s back like foils for times where they’ve only thought of what the other might do in different situations. _What would Lance do? What would Hunk do?_

They fought alongside each other, a grin pressed so deep as permanence in Lance’s lips, when it’s added to Hunk, It’s like lights have settled over his skin, Watching them take off, watching them get out there rough and tumbling over in the skies. 

It’s hard to believe that this is what had become of that same kid who fell off Hunk’s bike at seven years old. The same kid who befriended Hunk through everything, who talked with him under the stars outside in backyard camping grounds, and swinging up and up and up on swings, pretending to be pilots and imagining themselves going to strange worlds and meeting so many different aliens and people. _( I bet you one day I’ll meet an Alien princess and kiss her! No way!!)_

It’s hard to believe that this is the same kid who’d get caught up in fist fights over stupid things like broken action figures, and torn up comic books. The same kid who nearly saved Hunk’s life before, the same kid who’d fallen into the depths of oceans and pushed himself back up to the top in heightened spirits. The same kid who made it into the Garrison, made it as a pilot, made as it as a defender, a guardian of the galaxy, and honored as rightfully one after the end of it all by his teammates and by the people of every know star and planet in the known galaxies beyond in ravenous victory.

Lance is so many good things tied up into one and he doesn’t even realize the kind of impact his absence from their lives has. 

Hunk wants to let him know, let him know it in every known detail possible, but the moment never struck itself until much later, when he’s packing up his things and making the bed in Julia’s old room getting ready to leave. 

He gets about a dozen different texts from both parties back home in Arizona, doesn’t read a single one till he’s halfway down the stairs. 

_Why didn’t you tell us you were going to see him?_

And Hunk regresses back against the wall, a heavy sigh rolling off his chest as he types, _I know, I’m sorry, we’ll talk about this later._

He’s gonna spend most of his time with Lance for the rest of the day. Coming back upstairs to meet Lance again in his room, where he always is, except this time he’s waiting for Hunk when he gets there, and he’s pulling them in with arms desperate and embracing. 

 

It’s little moments of, _I’m so glad you came_ , it’s little smiles and tender kisses along a jawline. It’s biting teeth over soft necks and warm hugs and it’s happiness here, it’s happiness all over the place and Hunk feels so content with it. 

 

\------------------------------------------------

The time comes early morning, Hunk has his things packed by the door and Lance is picking apart all the things he wants and needs for the trip back, they’re deciding on hotels for themselves to stay at, a place to meet Keith and Pidge, and then from there whatever else they can think about needed for this long awaited reunion. 

Lance has never looked so tired in his life. He’s practically slacking back behind Hunk, a hand gripped firmly to the back of Hunk’s shirt while guided through the rooms, making sure they didn’t forget anything. Hunk would think the show of it was cute if not for his own fatigue clouding his senses. 

Lance’s mother doesn’t let them rush, she’s sits them down a couple of times while letting the baggage be carried to the car handled by Alex. Lance will protest and slouch in his seat that he’s fine, they’re fine and they can do this by themselves, they’re going on into their twenties, it’s not like they’re little kids anymore. 

But she begets to them different. They’re certainly not okay ; practically looking like they haven’t slept well in two days and walking around the house like zombies doesn’t exactly paint to her the sign that her young man and his friend are okay to be carrying heavy bags out to a yellow cab. Hunk isn’t surprised he’s being told to sit out of this one, it’s a short break and frankly they have all the time in the world to sleep on the long journey home. 

Lance will pout, whine one last time and then quiet himself, gradually falling back against the cushions into easy sleep, it’s neat how he’s able to just slide into slumber like that. Hunk could never do it, it would take him escapes of counting sheep or doing something productive just to slip into it, never as simple as just closing his eyes and in seconds he’s gone. What a talent that must be. 

 

When it’s time, and that’s closer to the hour of noon, they’ve resettled with heading outside, Lance hot under the sweep of Hunk’s arm and standing on the sidewalk while their bags hits the trunk of the cab they’ve called hours ago. 

It’s bittersweet, seeing this place again, and leaving it so soon as if Hunk had only been here for a day, he feels something algid pull at the inner workings of his chest, that must be homesickness, he’s gonna miss it. 

He said his goodbyes to the family, they give him good words and short smiles and tight hugs. They spend a minute longer doing this with Lance. He waits by the car, hands in his pockets and catching the last glimpsea of Lance waving away a teary eyed mother, ever so looking like he’s a skip and a beat away from ripping into his own tears and that’s when he turns on his heels and walks towards Hunk, his face concealed with the back of his hand.

Hunk offers, “ You okay?”

And Lance answers “ Yeah, I’ll be fine.” 

They don’t say much on the trip back, it’s silence and Lance sleeping peacefully in the back seat with Hunk running his fingers over their skin and hair, staring out the windows while the the scenery changes, it’s blurs of purple and black, to blues and yellows, a nice mixture of color while the car speeds over the streets and out into more rural areas. 

 

He types out a text, his fingers lingering over the screen a couple times before it’s shut off, put away, and he sleeps the rest the way through.

It's gonna be a long way back home, he should take advantage. 

\--------------------------------------------------------------- 

“ I can’t believe this place doesn’t have a decent coffee shop in fair distance of this town. What are we supposed to do? Drive all the way there? “ Pidge mutters, the bangs of her hair pushed out of sight with a hand, the cold knots the colors of her nose a light red, sniffling. Hunk is putting away things into his own car, the truck he got off from his house before they arrived here, before they went anywhere else. 

Lance bumps shoulders with the car’s side door, watching, keeping his eyes off Keith. 

“ Uh I’m pretty sure a coffee shop isn’t really the most ideal place for a restaurant stop.” Hunk inputs, from the inside, he’s putting away clothes and other things in their packs. “Like for an adequate selection of food? it’ll be unlikely..” 

Pidge shrugs, “ I know. It’s just that it’s been so long since I’ve had one of those good hot ones in my hands, they usually have those annual special coffees they only do during the seasons like this one." She picks at the scarf wrapped around her neck, pushing her glasses up. It looks to be a size too big for her, like a hand me down from one of her brothers, but with cute little stars patched in. "You know like the cinnamon surprise?” 

Lance lifts his head from the car with a snort,” You still drink that crap?” 

“Hey, it’s good crap, not like any of that watered down stuff they used to sell near our old place? The one with all the weird green slurpees that looked like cold vomit mixed with boogers?” 

That one pulls a reaction out of Keith, his face scrunching up in disgust. Pidge gives a shudder at the thought, as with Lance imitating a similar mirror to Keith’s. “ Yeah now that was disgusting.” 

“ Couldn't have been much more gross than the diner that sells grub by the desert.” Keith chimes in, He’s leaning over the street lamp unlit by the daylight, staring holes in the floor but perks up at the conversation. 

“ They used to have these little pieces of meat on sticks that tasted like dogshit and were left out for long hours at a time to stew in their light up boxes of heat. They smelled like sewage and sometimes you’d find little balls of hair just tucked in them after a bite….” 

“ Eww what the fuck?” 

“ Are you serious?” 

“ Yep, went there to try one out one day because I was curious and didn't note the smell. I regret that decision every day of my life because of it..” 

Pidge scoffs, it’s light off the rims of a laugh. “ I bet. Ugh I can’t imagine how that would taste.. just thinking about it makes feel a little less hungry and a little more ill… yikes. 

“ I sure hope not, considering we’re just about to go eat right now.” Hunk tucks the rest of the bag back further under the seat, slamming the car door behind him. It’s made apparent in his expression that he isn’t all that pleased with the discussion at hand. “ And really guys? Talking about gross food experiences right before we go to settle down ourselves to a meal?” 

They all seem a little apologetic, Pidge more so but it's tilted with a sense of humor running amuck their faces instead of penitence. “ Sorry”, she adds, with a hand rubbing the back of her neck. 

He says nothing but pretends like it was just in good ailment to the pushing tensions out of the atmosphere. He hadn’t stopped paying attention to that, they’re all trying to play it cool like it wasn’t just a week ago they weren’t in a hotel room executing question after question like pulled petals from a pistil. They had a lot to answer for, Lance especially. 

And Hunk had spent the better long two days of getting things situated, of getting Lance to calm down and sit still while he called the rest of them over, it was consoling an irate Keith and a bemused Pidge on the phone, because he had told them to wait, told them to hold everything until he got back with Lance. They could all deal with this respectively in the same room under the same roof, and everything would be fine. 

As so he expected. 

The talk was long and full of words emotional and less, Keith and Lance clashed little sported in arguments over Lance’s excuse, but by the end of it things had calmed down between them. Keith seemed to understand it, however much time it took for him to calm down about being left in the dark for so long, and Hunk remembers the talk they had in the hallway while Pidge lead Lance to the bathroom, help him clear up his face and hair, since it looked like it hadn’t been brushed in a while. And Keith had say the words faintly, with crossed arms over his chest. 

“I’m still mad at him, I get it and I forgive him to some extent, but I’m still mad. “ 

And Hunk had said it was okay to be angry about it, he didn’t have to forgive Lance so quickly if he didn’t want to. They can work towards that. 

They seemed okay with that, it'll work for him if it’ll work for Lance, and it did for a time, they got better at it. 

They all seemed to flock back into that same pack they had back when the skies were painted with their names in flying lions and greater purpose had called to them in a flash of blue and glowing lights. 

It feels like that time was ages ago, the memory of it is distant. 

They all packed into the car, Lance sitting with him up by the driver’s seat, not a word, not a movement uttered between them till they reached the ends of downtown; a diner that’s well known and mildly popular from the seaters to the food that Pidge delicately inputs firmly as the best kinda food you could get out of this shithole of a town. 

The place is oddly not as packed as it usually is and they find a seat for themselves immediately by the window side curved upwards and into the ceiling. The moment is fine, the moment is good. 

“ So like what are you guys going to do now?” Pidge prompts from her side of the table, the steam from her soup floats mist over her face, fogging up the bottom edges of her glasses partially. Hunk didn’t really think about that just yet, The thought hadn’t crossed his mind since he got back. Lance cuts off whatever kind answer he would have offered with a proclamation: 

“ We’re going on a road trip!” 

And it’s three pairs of eyes seated confused to the announcement, Hunk stammers to give it ground. “ N-not quite yet!! We’ve still haven’t decided on housing issues and whether or not we want to stay here like, keep a house or an apartment here. “ 

Lance tuts, with a fork in one hand gesturing a tap in mid-air with a click in his tongue. “ That and a road trip.” 

“ A road trip huh? Sounds fun." Pidge twirls the spoon in her bowl. " Although I don’t really know much about good places to scatter around for sight seeing. The west coast here can be pretty barren at times. Could be good for a like a honeymoon type thing if that’s what you’re going for.” 

Hunk chokes on his vegetable, there’s a flicker of a knowing look riding high on Lance, like he knows what he heard too and can almost hear the laughter. 

“ Don’t worry, I’m not trying to swim too far out into the unknowns before I’ve settled down first.” Hunk says, forcing the rest of his food down with a gulp of water. Priorities should come top list before anything else. A place to live in would be nice, maybe not too far away from home, or somewhere on a coast, the same kind Lance and him had when they were little, it’s something he wants to give themselves as a getaway from other things, maybe add a little bit more peace of mind where the thought hasn’t hang there before, he’s got the money for it. 

Lance gives him a look, “Aw come on, you don’t wanna go explore? It could be good for house hunting, we could find so many good places off the west end” He nudges him with an elbow, brows waggling comical, “ Maybe even a place by a beach?” 

It’s like Lance is reading his fucking mind all over again, knows when the thoughts about him fester up in bubbles. It’s interesting, it’s neat, it’s weird all at the same time but he doesn’t say anything about, shoving them back just playful, just as gentle. 

Keith doesn’t seem all that enthused by the suggestion, “ What’s so special about a road trip anyway? Do you really need to travel out that far to find what you’re looking for?" 

Hunk would say it politely that no, they don’t need to travel that far, they don’t need to travel at all because he knows about ten different beaches just off the top of his head that are good locations for a home, a good place to stay at for apartments, he’s not so sure about an actual house just yet. 

But Lance pulls that little title of a statement out of his ass , no shorter than mourning along the lines of “when he gets back to California” and they can choose from there all the spots and residents are just as nice if not a little bit better than this barren wasteland they’ve found each other in decades ago, plus the added bonus of being closer to family than just here, as in here--here and Keith is quirking his brows slightly at them, unsure and expression hidden odd under a squint. 

“ You should come with us when we go,” Lance offers over the table, a french fry meets his mouth, munching mechanically towards Keith slurping the last bits of his soda down. “ You know, stick with us for a little bit till you’re ready to find yourself a place.” 

He’s the only one here without a home better to called a home than the shack. It’s gonna be a while before he recovers, it’s gonna be a while before he’s moving on himself. 

they’ve had all the time in the world to mourn over Shiro. All the time in the world to be with each other like this. 

And it’s not like this is gonna last for much long, because Pidge is gonna have to go back home, and Hunk is gonna want to get back to what he does best, and Lance is gonna want distractions, and Keith is gonna want to be somewhere that’s not here and not back at the shack he’s got jacked up out on the outskirts of a desert, he’s gonna want the contact, he’s gonna want things like this, because so far, this is all he’s had to roll himself back into the unusual routine of Earth again. This is all that’s been keeping him afloat for so long and why he hasn’t cracked under at all since he’s gotten back, all sharp edged smiles and bittersweet sentiments. 

Keith doesn’t even try to feign the surprise into nonchalance, the loose scoop of his pasta slipping off the fork. “ What?” 

Hunk elaborates,” If you want, you can--could come with us, for a while and stay for however long you need to sort your things out. His words part heavy, flickering his gaze to them pointedly. His brain will tell it on delicate grounds, like they’re still sharing linked minds here, even after knowing that spark is gone, even after the power lingers no more in any of them. It's giving Keith some peace of mind with them, it's keeping him less lonely out there and deserted It's _You don’t gotta stay here all by yourself, it’s fine with us, I don’t mind it at all._

But it goes through, like linked minds are still an apparent concept, like it’s still there, still very much faint when Keith gets it, and he gets it because the fork is long forgotten about on a plate of half eaten spaghetti, babbling uncontrollably, like he heard it differently than how they tell it and wants to clarify it because _What?? and what???!_

And Lance is laughing hard, in his seat like the very scene in front of him is funny, and Hunk is gaining flashbacks to when they’re at home watching those really sketchy flicks on a television screen late at night when Hunk is eleven and Lance is shaking his shoulders pointing at the crudity in the humor like it’s the best thing he’s ever seen in the world, like it’s damn near the funniest joke and Hunk stresses a smile. 

Pidge clears it with, “ I think that would be good for you.” And Keith airs with saying he needs time, a lot of it, but the offer still stands for him either way when they tell him “it’s okay.” 

This is okay 

Things will be okay for all of them coming forward into the future. 

Keith points out, “ I don’t know, I think living under a roof with you two would seem like I’m intruding on something…” He squints, the bridge of his nose scrunching in wrinkles, the word is right off the the tip of his tongue--clicks it to the roof of his mouth. “ Intimate.” 

Hunk coughs with a heat in his cheeks, Lance takes initiate to interject. 

“ Oh no it won’t be so bad! We’re won’t even do much the first couple of weeks, Moving in is taxing work..” he trails with the rest of it; a couple french fries swept in circles around ketchup that’s been dabbed to his plate. Then incites something with a look, too mischievous and running along ends of suggestive, waggling his brows with a wink. “ Plus, there’s always room for one more…” 

It’s Keith’s turn to choke on his lunch, Pidge yelping in hiccups of laughter while Hunk wishes with red cheeks colored full in embarrassment to just shrink ways into his seat because they're laughing so hard, and Lance is laughing so hard, and Keith is red in the face, a short burst from shouting something across the table to Lance that'll cause a scene in this fucking diner, and he can already see people starting to stare down at the rowdy bunch just short down the lane at table five. He groans softly under his breath, masking his face --- _did Shiro ever feel this kinda embarrassment with them before?_

He will later tell them when they're more or less kicked out the diner that he regrets taking them out of the hotel at all for food at the expense of a break. 

They know he doesn't mean it, but he never takes it back. 

It's just a long ride in the car back home, boisterous and loud that way that Hunk wouldn't have it any other way, the way he's happy with hearing them all together in the same place. Instead of it just being days of resentment and heavy heart and minds unfurling at the surface of being damaged and left without need. This.. whatever this is-is good, and it's great, and its better than last few months he's had chasing after his friends out of the rut he's worked so hard to keep them out it. 

After chasing after Lance and finally bringing him back, this feeling.. is a good sort, he wouldn't want displaced for anything else, even as the night dies down with their laughter. \----------------------------------------------------- 

So it’s like this, 

They rent out a hotel room, enough for three people, because Keith had decided during his spacey moments and coming off from a withered down high that he wanted to stay. 

Neither Hunk nor Lance deny him of that choice, Lance seemingly a little more teasing about it when he asks why the change and Keith just gives him a look, short of the ones that look like they could shoot daggers from under the eyelids and Lance backs down, slithering away to the side of Hunk, collecting their hand in his. 

Pidge goes home early, she takes a cab and sticks around for an hour, joking with the rest of them, talking about about the future, it’s not gonna be so hard going back home anymore, the routine isn’t as droll. And when she leaves, Hunk is left with two people--two equals at the side of the room. 

Things are suspiciously easy with the both of them there. The kinda yelling he was hearing in the car, had muted to soft whispers and tepid smiles. He’ll watch them from a distance, near the edge of a window, where Lance looks like he’s in mid sentence of telling something incredibly prolix to Keith. There’s a lot of squinting, a lot of hard looks, and then Keith is nodding like Lance had asked him to do something, and he’s getting up from the side of the bed. 

Lance is following him feet first behind before Keith is throwing his arm around them in a tight hug, and it’s the same image as what Hunk saw before, on a battlefield, the rust and rumble having coated their skin and painted their armors inky and black with gravel. It’s Keith smiling for real, him coming over to see Hunk and doing the exact same thing, with an added “thanks” catching wind under his breath before he pulls away and talks about how he’s going out for a walk, he still needs a little time. 

They give him privacy, they watch him leave, Lance is a ghost in minutes, he’s by the bedside and then by the door, before Hunk finds him leading for the balcony outside. 

It’s quiet over the surface, the skies pouring blues of darker shade overs the horizon, in mixtures of yellow, the only vivid glow of the sun’s gaze that’s driven into the center of the city like a beacon. 

The scene is fitting, almost like he can see themselves in it, the colors fit, and makes sense in a way. 

Lance is vast and boundless like the skies And he is the sun burning in it. 

A cute little metaphor, albeit corny. 

“ It feels so surreal” Lance finally after a moment, his head leaning over the balcony fence. “ To be back here on Earth like this. 

“ it is”, Hunk agrees, settling. “Feels like it’s been forever hasn’t it?” 

More than that Lance thinks, it feels like they’re were never meant to come back from it, like this reward was a fever dream, out of reach, misplaced, Hunk catches the frown slightly. “ You didn’t think we’d ever come back?” 

“ No”, Lance slouches further, the pinch of steel creating pressure on his hand, “ I didn’t think we’d ever would for a time. Like at first thought when we were up there light years away from home, and dealing with so much at a time. I thought to myself wow, we might not even make it back here, like the odds of us seeing this place, seeing home, felt like a lost concept to me. I was upset for days about it. “ 

Hunk blinks, “ I remember that..” 

A sound comes painful out his gut, a laugh unmistakable but disguised as a wheeze and Lance is tilting over, he’s rising up and sliding himself closer to Hunk. Hunk lets him, he takes pride in letting them take up a space in him. 

“ Do you.. Remember that thing we promised each other?" Lance pipes up, his head craning to look up at Hunk expectedly. “ When we were kids?” 

Hunk’s stiffens up then relaxes,inputting his fingers gently over the the course of Lance’s shoulder trailed down to the waist. The touch is familiar, genuine, and he can feel Lance lean into it little by little as he goes. 

Hunk hasn’t forgotten about that, he hasn’t forgotten about the memories of them as kids, messing around in pools at night, getting Lance out of fights, marshmallows over an open fire in the backyards, flying high up on swings in the summer. Pretending to be grade-A pilots and Lance is looking to him back then with a hand to his shoulder going, _we’re going to be great! and you’re the best thing that’s ever come into my life… you know that right?_ It’s grabbing on to each other on a beach after chasing a wave and almost drowning. 

It’s cold wet hands shaking frantically to Lance’s shoulders while he’s laughing and Hunk’s heart feels like it might burst into strings of sadness and relief. It was fear back then, it was happiness back then, it was every little mix of emotions pressed together all into one bit mess of their lives turned historic; embellished in stone on a plaque somewhere far off in the universe with names Lance Mcclain and Hunk Garrett: Defenders of the Universe 

Somehow in after all of it, it still felt like they were just kids pedaling on dreams and fantasies, still looking out for one another on pinky swears, and first dates, and first time kisses at a prom night. 

It still feels like it’s them against the world,and they’re sharing smiles and blasting enemies as far as they come, waiting for their last day, waiting for the end of it. It’s them at seven, jumping up and down over each other in airy victories _( we did it! We did it! We won we’re okay!)_

And it’s familiar, and it’s right, a cog of something churning unsteady in his gut like wild fire when that expression is painted in him from the eyes of a fifteen year old to ones of twenty and Lance is saying again in real time: 

“ You’re the best thing that’s ever come into my life...you know this right?” 

Hunk doesn’t know when it was he starting crying. 

But it happens and it he lets it pour out like it’s been awaiting him all this time and he’s never had the chance, never allowed it the opportunity. 

Lance is quick, pulling them in softly at the touch, their fingernails don’t scrap for nothing just short of keeping their face peeled of the running tears. It’s reminds Hunk too much of a time when Hunk had cried over a scrap knee and a busted nose, and Lance stood there with a fond care in eyes, wiping away tears and helping them up, _“You’re gonna be okay he says, we’re gonna be okay._

It’s leaning into each other when the time seems right, it’s careful smiles and jokey quips being nailed in between stifles of shaky gasps and heartfelt laughter mixed in sobs. Because Lance is trying to be funny, he’s trying to lighten the air, and Hunk is fine with it. 

It’s kissing Lance and knowing this is right, this is real and it’s good-- it’s really good, he doesn’t wanna stop, doesn’t wanna pull away. 

“ Promise me we’ll stick together through this forever?” 

Lance’s lips are a pinkish hue in the city lights, parted, but still faint over the touch, they’re only just a breath apart. 

Hunk doesn’t waste a second. 

“Of course…. I’m never leaving you behind. “

**Author's Note:**

> A small thing I wrote while getting around to finishing up other things. .  
> I just wanted to write more about them especially, and there might come a time when I might write up a prequel.


End file.
